your eyes look like coming home
by iwillalwaysbeyourlight
Summary: He'll never tire of this, of mornings spent tangled up in her. The first in a series of vignettes, snapshots from Finn and Rachel's life together.


A/N: The first in a series of vignettes - snapshots from Finn and Rachel's life together. For the lovely phelipa, who requested summer, reading, and morning. Incredibly fluffy. I hope it makes you smile. Reviews are love.

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Finn wakes up early on Saturday morning, rubs the sleep from his eyes and squints over at the alarm clock on their bedside table - 6:53 AM.

Usually, Rachel wakes first, pads into the kitchen to feed their cat and puts the coffee on to brew before coming to rouse him for the day. This morning, though, she is curled into his side, her head resting on his chest and her right leg tucked between his. He'll never tire of this, of mornings spent tangled up in her.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, lingering there for a moment and breathing her in. She always smells so good, sweet - like vanilla and lemons and summertime. It's _her_ and he thinks someone should bottle it up and sell it as a perfume or something. She still uses the same shampoo she used when they were in high school, and sometimes the scent takes him back to that day in the auditorium when she told him he could kiss her if he wanted to and he realized that, not only did he want to kiss her then, he wanted to spend the rest of his life kissing her, only her.

He'll never tire of that, either.

Finn yawns, stretching his arms above his head, and the slight shift in his body is enough to make Rachel stir. She lifts her head from his chest and groggily mumbles something about exiting stage left, then rolls back over onto her side of the bed without saying another word.

(She talks in her sleep a lot, mostly about Broadway and, on occasion, pastries. She sings, too. Oddly enough, she is almost always off-key. It never fails to make him laugh. He won't ever tell her that, though.)

Rachel is the most physically affectionate person he knows. She's probably the most physically affectionate person _ever_. She loves to cuddle– in the back seat of taxis, on the couch, in booths at restaurants – wherever. They splurged on this ridiculously expensive mattress a few years back, when Rachel was doing eight shows a week and working her ass off on Broadway, and sometimes he likes to tease her about how they barely even use half of it, says that they could have just saved some money and gone with a full since she's always over on his side anyway. He loves it, though, falling asleep every night with her body pressed against his.

It's cold on his side of the bed, now that Rachel has rolled away, and it's silly because she is literally right there next to him, but he misses her. He closes the space between them and spoons up behind her, curves his body around hers and brings his hand to rest on her hip, rubs at her skin lightly with his thumb. She sighs contentedly and he buries his face in her hair, closing his eyes and reveling in the familiarity of her.

He's just barely dozing off again when he hears Eponine mewing and pawing at their bedroom door. And, like, he could probably fall back to sleep anyway, make her wait until one of them is actually ready to get out of bed and feed her breakfast, but that cat is Rachel's baby and he knows the incessant meowing will wake her up and he wants her to get as much rest as she possibly can.

Begrudgingly, he crawls out from under the covers and grabs a sweatshirt from the laundry basket, pulling it over his head to stave off the chill of the early October morning. He picks Eponine up, scratches behind her ears to quiet her, and carries her out of their room.

He isn't a cat person, not really, but Eponine is pretty awesome. She's super affectionate and seems to genuinely enjoy human company. Like, she actually greets him at the door when he comes home from work. How many other cats do that? Finn figures maybe it's because she feels grateful to them.

See, they rescued her from the animal shelter last Christmas and she was just this tiny thing – grey and white with a velvety pink nose – entirely too young to be separated from her mother. She probably would have died if they hadn't taken her home with them. Rachel had to bottle-feed her every couple of hours during those first few weeks and burp her, too. It was like having a newborn, and he can distinctly remember the moment when Rachel looked over at him during one of the kitten's 3 AM feedings and said, "You know, I think we're ready to have a baby."

Which, yeah, he sort of already knew that.

It had been the only real source of contention between them in their marriage. He was ready and she just…wasn't. He was trying so hard to be patient and give her time, not push her into anything she wasn't completely prepared for, but he wanted to start a family with her as desperately as she had once wanted Broadway. And they _were_ ready, more than ready. They'd been married for three years and were in a great place both financially and in their careers and there was even a Tony with Rachel's name on it sitting atop their mantel. She had her doubts, though. Not about him (she always told him he was going to be the best dad in the whole world, and she was raised by two amazing fathers, so…), but in her own ability to mother. She said that she was too selfish, and he never understood that. He still doesn't. Because he has watched Rachel love – her family, her friends, Eponine, _him_ – and when she loves, she loves fiercely, unconditionally, and with every bit of her soul.

He tried to ease her worries, told her that she had more love to give than anyone he'd ever met and that she wasn't selfish, not even a little bit, and that he knew she was going to be the most amazing mother. His words were never really enough, though, and it got to the point where she would sort of just shut down on him anytime the subject of kids came up.

So, in a weird way, he feels like he owes Eponine for coming into their life and showing Rachel everything he'd been trying to tell her for years.

That doesn't stop him from being annoyed with the cat for forcing him out of his warm bed on a Saturday morning, though.

"You really couldn't have waited to eat for another hour?" He asks Eponine as he opens a can of her fancy (expensive) food and dumps it onto a plate.

She looks up at him and meows, which he guesses means 'no'.

Finn puts down the plate and freshens her water bowl (with filtered water from the refrigerator because their cat is a total brat and won't drink anything else). He briefly considers sinking back into bed with Rachel, but he's wide awake now and feeling restless, so he busies himself in the kitchen instead. He unloads the dishwasher, rinses the coffee pot, and rummages through the pantry for something to make for breakfast. He isn't the best cook, that's Rachel's thing, but he _can_ whip up a pretty mean batch of French toast. It's Rachel's favorite, his French toast (she gave up veganism years ago), so he settles on fixing that for her. Except to make French toast, you need bread, and eggs, and milk. None of which they currently have in their apartment.

Rachel had called him yesterday while he was at work and asked him to pick up groceries on his way home. She called again, an hour later, and said, "I miss you, skip the grocery store and come home. We'll go to John's for pizza tonight." So of course he skipped the store because going home to his wife sounded like a lot more fun than buying eggs. Besides, John's has some of the very best pizza in New York City. Dinner ended up turning into this really fun date night and afterwards, they took the long way home, past Central Park, and stopped to get hot apple cider and cinnamon donuts for dessert. They had every intention of swinging by the store before heading back to their building, but they were, like, a block away from Whole Foods when Rachel slipped her hand into his back pocket, which is Rachel code for 'I want you, now'. So, yeah, they went straight home and ended their night with sex in the shower. It was definitely worth waking up to an empty pantry in the morning.

Finn slips quietly back into their room, steps into a pair of jeans and picks up his wallet from the dresser, tucking it into his pocket. Rachel is still sound asleep (she's snoring, actually, and it's kind of the most adorable thing ever), so he jots down a note and leaves it on his pillow for her just in case she wakes up before he gets back.

WENT TO GET BREAKFAST, BE BACK SOON. LOVE YOU. -FINN

He grabs his keys from their designated hook in the hallway and heads out the door, walks a few blocks up from their building to this little corner bakery they both love. There was a time when he wasn't sure they'd ever have any of this – a favorite bakery or breakfast in bed on lazy Saturday mornings – but they do. They have this whole life together now and it's better than he ever could have imagined.

She's sitting up in bed reading when he returns, sunlight streaming into their room through the open shutters and bathing her in a soft glow. She's just wearing one of his old football shirts from high school and she has her glasses on and her hair is up in this messy bun, but she has seriously never looked more gorgeous. He loves her in the mornings. He loves her always, but he loves her especially in the mornings.

"Morning, beautiful," he says, carefully setting the cups he is carrying down on their nightstand and dropping a bakery bag onto the bed.

Rachel abandons her book and grins over at him, "Good morning yourself, Mr. Handsome!"

"How are you?" He asks, leaning down and brushing a kiss to her cheek.

"I'm fine. I'll be better once you come back to bed, though." She pulls back the comforter and pats the bed with her hand for him to join her.

"Alright," Finn chuckles, unbuttoning his jeans and stripping back down to his boxers. "You don't have to ask me twice." He crawls over to her on the bed and settles in beside her underneath the covers.

She smiles, puts her hand on the back of his neck, draws him in for a kiss.

"You taste like coffee," she murmurs, her lips moving against his.

He pulls back, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Good," she says before she leans in and kisses him again, pressing her tongue lightly against his. "I miss coffee so much."

He has to laugh, because at this point he isn't really sure if she's kissing him to kiss him or kissing him because his mouth tastes like her beloved coffee.

"Babe, the doctor said it was safe for you to drink up to a cup a day."

"I know, but I don't want to risk it. I want to take the very best care of our baby." She tells him, smoothing her hand over the soft curve of her belly.

She's 23 weeks along now and they're both so unbelievably happy. He still has to pinch himself sometimes, things are _that_ good. Rachel had been sort of freaked out at first – they weren't trying but they weren't exactly not trying, either – and even though she told him she felt like they were ready, a baby was a lot different than a kitten. She got over it, though, when they went in for her 8 week appointment and saw their baby on ultrasound for the first time. He watched her fall in love that afternoon, hard and fast and with wild abandon.

"I know you do, and you _are_. I just think you should cut yourself a little slack and drink a cup of coffee if you want to."

She shakes her head determinedly, "No. I'm perfectly content with our coffee kisses for the time being. "

"Well, in that case–"He picks up his cup of coffee from the nightstand, takes a sip, darts another kiss to her lips.

It becomes a little game between them, and Finn can think of much worse ways to spend a Saturday morning. They continue with it through nearly half of his cup of coffee, until Rachel's stomach grumbles loudly.

"I guess the baby's hungry."

He nods, grabs the bag he'd picked up from the bakery and opens it. "What do you want? I got a couple of croissants, a chocolate chip bagel, one of those blueberry muffins you love–"

He doesn't even know why he's asking her because they've only been eating at that bakery for like, five years now, and she orders the same thing every single time.

"Hmmm," she taps her chin like she's actually considering which to choose. "I'll take the blueberry muffin, please."

He smiles, shakes his head and mutters, "I knew it," before passing her the muffin.

She just rolls her eyes a little, picks one of the blueberries off the top of the muffin and pops it in her mouth. "You did, did you?"

"Yep, you're only the most predictable unpredictable person ever."

Rachel shrugs, "You love me."

"I do," he says earnestly. "More than you will ever know."

She smiles softly, turning her head to look at him, and he hopes she never stops looking at him in that way – like he hung the moon and the stars in the sky just for her.

"I love you too." She reaches over and lightly pushes her finger into his dimple, "I missed waking up to this face."

"I know," he takes her hand in his, kisses her knuckles a few times. "I woke up and realized all we had for breakfast was, like, half of an overripe banana and a couple of granola bars, so I had to go out. Sort of figured you'd still be asleep by the time I got back."

"I had to feed Eponine, she was starving! Oh, it was pitiful, Finn." She sticks out her bottom lip and she looks _so_ sad and he's certain she could get him to do anything in the world for her with that face. "She was meowing and batting at my shoulder with her little paw."

He shakes his head, laughs. "Um, babe, your cat is a liar."

"What are you talking about?" She asks, getting all indignant, and he starts to worry that she's legitimately angry with him for calling the cat a liar.

"I fed her before I left. She's the only reason I got out of bed in the first place, I didn't want her to wake you up."

"Oh," she says, her tone softening. "Well, thank you for being so thoughtful and getting up to feed her so that I could sleep in and then bringing me breakfast in bed. You really are the best."

"You're welcome, anything for you and the baby." He slides his hand up underneath the bottom of her shirt so that he can rest his palm flat against her stomach.

She grips his wrist and guides his hand over to the spot just below her belly button, "Feel!"

He waits and, after a few seconds, there is an unmistakable nudge against his hand. "Good Morning, Lima Bean," he greets, lowering his head so that his mouth is inches from her belly. "Better acoustics that way," he'd told her once when she asked what he was doing.

Rachel giggles at the ridiculous nickname he'd bestowed on their baby the day they learned of its existence. "You know," she starts, "we can't call this baby Lima Bean forever. I know we don't know the gender, but it's really not a bad idea that we start coming up with a list of potential names."

"Sounds good," he says. He's a little distracted, his hand still pressed to her belly while he waits for the baby to move again. "We can sit down later and go through that baby name book your parents sent us."

"Actually, I already have one name in mind."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm," Rachel hums, combs her fingers back through his hair. "How do you feel about the name Cosette if the baby is a girl?"

"Rach, no."

She's pouting now. "But Finn, it's from Les Mis."

"No." He sits up next to her.

"But Eponine, it'll be our theme…"

"No!"

She huffs, folds her arms across her chest. She's cute when she's pissed. "I hardly think someone who once suggested Drizzle as a potential name for a baby girl has any room to talk."

Finn shakes his head. He pulls her to him, kisses her pout away. "Be quiet and eat your muffin."


End file.
